Long and beautiful letter from Edgar DEGAS about his family in Buenos Aires.

Edgar Degas (1834.1917)

Autograph letter signed to Sophie Niaudet-Berthelot.

Four pages in-8° on mourning paper.

Without place. October 16 [1895 or 1896]

“I always feel with emotion that you have kept something faithful and devoted to your old friends.”

Degas recounts the situation of his brother-in-law Henri Fèvre in Argentina.

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“My dear Sophie, You were kind enough, and it did not surprise me, to write to me that you had just softened your response to poor Fèvre [Henri Fèvre, Degas' brother-in-law]. Your letter must have reached him around the same time as mine which was, I fear, a little brutal.  I always feel with emotion that you have kept something faithful and devoted to your old friends. It’s because they were very unhappy without ever having deserved it.

Fèvre fell in love with an idea again , and has been writing to me about it for some time now two or three times a month. He would like to get the Argentine government to decree the founding of a credit bank for entrepreneurs, based on the model of the entrepreneurs' sub-counter which exists here and where our friend Rouart is involved. We build and we want to build a lot in Buenos Ayres [sic]. He expects that the Argentinians will take his idea into account and pay him for his initiative. Mr. Marchand supports him. Fèvre's confidence, as you can imagine, is always admirable. Say many things to poor Grenier. Needless to add, you must always believe in the affection of your old friend Degas. All my good memories in Berthelot. »

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Eight years younger than Degas, Marguerite (1842-1895) was one of her brother's favorite models. In 1865 she married the architect Henri Fèvre (1828-1900) whom she followed to Argentina in 1889: in a delicate financial situation following bad business, Fèvre hoped for a new start. The tone of the letter proves how much Degas did not trust this brother-in-law who, he said with annoyance, “was once again infatuated with an idea”…. Degas never saw his sister again, who died in Argentina in 1895 at the age of 53.

Sophie Niaudet-Berthelot (1837.1907), niece of Louis Breguet and wife of Marcellin Berthelot, was the first woman buried in the Pantheon.